Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions at a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.
In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.
“Oh shit, we’re getting hammered with our Constitutional violations all over the news! We have to do something”
A little thinking, then some genius looks across the room
“Hey!! Hegseth, finish that drink and then go threaten Greenland like the alcoholic Nazi you are. That’ll distract them!”
It’s not necessary to take Greenland at all, so there’s no need for a contingency plan. “if necessary” makes no sense.
how can it be necessary to invade a country?
Whenever a republican president wants to be reelected
Resources. The answer is always resources.
Necessary resources*
As long as you’re counting location as a resource. Ex. Cuba was an advantageous location for the Soviet Union during the cold war.
Idk, the gdp of Greenland is only 3b a year and it’s mostly from fishing. There’s really nothing the US could extract from Greenland that would be worth the cost of invading it. There’s some potential for mining, but you’d have to build an entire infrastructure to do it, and we don’t even want to invest in building infrastructure in the US.
Realistically the only thing that makes Greenland strategically important would be controlling the shipping lanes up north. However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.
I think it’s just meat they throw out to the media anytime they want to distract from their failures, and of course our pathetic press just gobbles it up every time.
The Danish news ran a story as to why Greenland was so important to Trump.
Apparently the special deal we did with the Americans in 1949 or whatever is tied to NATO membership. The US presence on the island is entirely dependent upon them being a member of NATO. Were the Americans to withdraw they’d have to shut down Pituffik and give up all their interests in the Arctic.
As to why Greenland is important - apart from the hope that resources can be extracted in a profitabel way - is, as you say, the northern shipping lanes (and theoretically the Russian military threat) as well as various possibilities with the changing climate. And of course it’s a classic “mine is bigger than yours” contest
It’s because of climate change. Rich Americans+that pretend climate change isn’t real) want to go there to bug out.
Lots of great reasons that aren’t the actual reason.
Greenland is very big on the map, and if it was apart of the United States then the US would look so big on the map.
Everyone says Trajan was the best roman emperor because the roman empire had the largest amount of territory under him, ergo if Greenland or Canada became part of the US then everyone would say the same thing about Trump.
That is the only reasoning behind this obsession.
I’d def agree with that before him wanting resources.
However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.
If that doesn’t play out, Putin will be dropped like Saddam.
Ask Putin. He is a big specialist in a related mental gymnastics. He’ll tell you how Anglo-Saksonians forced him to invade Ukraine.
This by no means diminishes this guy’s level of evil stupidity, but I’m entirely certain the pentagon had developed plans for all kinds of batshit insane shenanigans, including (but not limited to) invasions of probably most other countries in the world.
I think they have alien invasion plans.
They 100% do.
Zombies, aliens, Zeus and the gods of Olympus attacking Pearl Harbor…if you can imagine it there’s a folder in the Pentagon somewhere with general plans
This is documentary footage. You can’t argue with science.
norse gods, angel invasion.
Norse leviathan you say?
These people are too stupid and incompetent to realize we already have plans for everything.
Hegseth: You there! Jackson! I want plans on how to invade Greenland on my desk by the end of the week!
Johnson: [Looks at filing cabinet full of plans for invading every other country] Oh, yeah, sure thing, sir. Gonna be a few all-nighters, though. Me and the boys are gonna need some pizzas and a few bottles of Mountain Dew and some cinnamon dipperz.
Hegseth: No problem! Just take it out of the Preventing Kids From Being Thrown Into The Orphan Crushing Machine fund! You’re a good man Jackson!
Johnson: Sir, yes sir.
Hegseth: [takes enormous swig out of family-sized plastic bottle of bourbon]
Johnson’s a real straight shooter. He’s got upper management written all over him.
Frankly, good planning is the key to success at just about anything in life. The concept of having plans is not evil at all. And certainlynot in a military sense. What if Greenland got taken over by vampires? You don’t know. In that event, it would be good to have this plan on the books. Probably in no other circumstance besides that one but hey, there’s not anything wrong with having a plan.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
I find that a credible thought, though one would imagine an answer to say that they try to have plans for any concevaiable scenario, no matter how unlikely, and have done so for years.
One would imagine if he was good at this politics thing, he would have found an answer to distance such plans from the current contentious situation.
And upon reading, he said precisely that…
Or not even mention them at all, because what possible beneficial purpose could there be to divulging anything related to your military strategy or planning beforehand?
We stopped maintaining a handful of them, but waay later than you would expect. At some point we decided we didn’t need a plan to deal with an invasion by the British empire kept up to date at all times.
The DoD had a plan to attack the U.S. and blame it on Cuba. Not an invasion, but attacks.
I thought that was the definition of the pentagon? 🤔
The US wants to attack a NATO partner?!?! Krasnov is working for the Kremlin to destabilize NATO.
no, only ‘if necessary’ lol
What is that stuff on his lips? Looks like pointy pimples. Is it an STD?
If you look close at his bottom lip there’s a matching red mark. It almost looks like he was in a fight and took a shot to the mouth.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. To me it looks like stuff sticking out of his lip I’ve seen it before. A manager at a previously loved company used to have one. More like this:
Oh its HPV! Dudes, get your vaccine before they stop making it!
depends on which hpv, it might not work against the ones that infect the lips. theres like 99 types of hpv. they also normally dont give it to men after 26.
What is wrong with these morons.
Everything
I wonder if Denmark regrets this yet (arc)
With 94 votes in favor and only 11 against, the Danish parliament last night (June 11) passed a new defense agreement granting the United States extended access to military bases in three Danish cities: Karup, Skrydstrup, and Aalborg. The deal allows the US military to operate from these sites, store military equipment, conduct maintenance, exercises, and station personnel. The US forces will also have autonomous legal jurisdiction over their own military, relieving them from compliance with Danish law in the first degree.
Oh trust me, the Danish people find this highly criricisable. It’s been debated a lot over the past months - but the government - which is made up of the neoliberal parties who’s always had their tongues way up USA’s ass - has done everything they can to push it under the rug and to make it as secretive as possible. These people see only profit and the thought of “losing” USA as a partner is worse than the fact that we just invited the enemy in - with a deal where they can do whatever they want to do and we can’t even take them to court. Officially it’s because of “the Russian threat” but the only country that’d ever invade Denmark or has ever threatened to do so is USA… Russia has a few other countries to go through and they can’t even win their current war.
We’ve just always been an American puppet state.
There must be some interesting behind the scenes to this, considering trump has repeatedly threatened their sovereignty in Greenland
He thinks if the US was at it’s territorial height under him, that that would be an easy way to become the greatest president of all time. It’s vanity.
We’d absolutely use Denmark as a springboard to invade Greenland.
A quick search shows Greenlands population is 56,865. In what world would 56 thousand people, half of which are likely incapable of fighting due to age or sickness, be of any meaningful threat that we would need ‘contingency’ plans against them. Even if all 56 thousand could fight it would be a non war lasting hours against the military. That gigantic country has a similar population of my home COUNTY.
This shit is dumber than invading the middle east over oil. Is their hard on for… minerals and err… resources? Im not entirely sure why they want Greenland so much. This is stupid.
The contingency plan probably isn’t about the people at all. It’s likely the government has had a plan for a long time, maybe since WWII, about any number of countries including Greenland. Strategic points to either destroy or control. How to repel an invading force as well as how to invade against a repelling force.
That’s who the US has become over the last 80 years.
So wait, your saying it’s about the golden dome or trumps anti nuke wall or whatever i gods name he was talking about.
I stand by the “this is stupid” comment.
No, it has nothing to do with the “Golden Dome” nonsense.
The US did all sorts of war game scenarios and plan making during and directly after WWII and they’ve never stopped.
There’s actually probably a lot of countries who have done the same, though I’m not sure to the extent the US has.
The fact that the US has a plan like this by itself isn’t newsworthy. Who it’s coming from makes it noteworthy because, while the plan may have been created decades ago, it’s a very unsubtle threat against another nation.
I agree that this is stupid, but understanding is important because this is how they weasel out of things. If confronted or challenged they’ll say, “Oh, that plan was put together decades ago.” Everything they do is done with cover because not only are they fascists, they’re cowards too.
Denmark is a NATO country and Greenland is part of it. As soon as we attack all of NATO is obligated to attack us. They can start non violet by stopping all trade and dumping the dollar crashing our economy.
Even just to the Greenlanders could be a real problem.
People sabatogue blow up poison and casually murder you after giving in.
We can’t murder everyone and the us has been shown to be very intolerant to a few thousand troop deaths not to mention civilian deaths on their side live on TV
It would absolutely be a cluster fuck worse than Iraq
NATO members can’t interfere in conflicts between NATO members, only in conflicts between NATO and non-NATO. NATO is a cold war relic designed to be used against the Warsaw Pact countries, not some universal defense and peace instrument. Right now it’s either useless or a tool for western imperialism.
This statement is based on nothing.
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
That says nothing about attacks of NATO members on NATO members and there are precedents like Turkey taking over and occupying half of Cyprus leading to war between members Greece and Turkey where the other useless members did absolutely nothing because the standard interpretation is that NATO doesn’t protect members from other members. Stop making up theories and spreading misinformation.
In a word no, membership in NATO isn’t a shield against the rest of NATO
That’s 2k more than my small suburb I live in. That’s nothing at all.
I grew up in a village of around 350… everything is a lot of people to me.
Well, there are “plans” and then there are plans. I’m certain Canada has a “plan” for military operations against the US should that be necessary, but we aren’t planning it.
I have plans to start flossing regularly too.
Have they said why they’re so obsessed over Greenland? I don’t mean why you think they want it, i mean has any of them ever said why?
I think they’ve said for strategic military reasons (don’t know what’s wrong with all the EU bases we have) but likely it’s because of natural resources. Typical authoritarian shit.
ice, global warming, melty melt, geologists would have a rsging boner whats there becoming accessible
Maybe oil & gas or mineral geologists. Scientific geologists, like all other scientists, are horrified at the stark changes due to global warming. A few years ago it rained for the first time on record at summit station, historically it was always snow. Now it’s warm enough to rain.
The word on the street is that Peter Thiel and friends wan’t it for a tech bro network state, with no regulation on AI (as in LLMs) and other tech fantasies.
Don’t have a link, but it’s public known that Thiel and friends wan’t it, and that they seem to have the man in power in on it.
That’s interesting. I haven’t heard that yet. I can see them thinking like that.
Also went a while before I heard it. Here are some links:
Thank you!
Significant presence in the Arctic circle which may become more valuable with some climate change and/or closer relationship with Russia.
At least that’s what I’d guess. Similar story with Canada, more land to have a better chance to respond to climate change.
I don’t mean why you think they want it, i mean has any of them ever said why?
The Mercator projection made Greenland look very big on the map.
People tend to equate when a country or empire has the most territory as it being at it’s height.
It’s a vanity thing. He wants to see the words ‘The United States of America was at it’s territorial peak under President Donald Trump’ echo through history.
I don’t mean why you think they want it, i mean has any of them ever said why?
FAFO
It’s less weird to have a contingency plan than it is to specifically mention it.
Which would trigger WW3.
Too late we’re already there
Doubtful
did he hear they have booze there or something?
